Ms_Cranky_Pants t1_j91qo6h wrote on February 18, 2023 at 3:57 PM

Reply to comment by sllewgh in Baltimore Sees Steep Drop in Unhoused Residents by real_human__bean

Yep. Also, the Point in Time count doesn’t even include everyone who meets the definition of “homelessness”. Including people whose living situation is unstable (couchsurfing, staying with family, etc.) or staying in a single room occupancy arrangement (those room rental situations really suck). It’s hard to determine how many people are in those situations, but important to acknowledge, they need access to resources too. “Housing” is the bare minimum, people need agency and some kind of quality of life.

cuzimmathug t1_j92z2wd wrote on February 18, 2023 at 9:07 PM

It's also based on one night out of the entire year, specifically one of the coldest nights of the year, intentionally. The federal theory is that "people who CAN find a place to stay but choose not to during bearable weather will be staying somewhere on the coldest night" as if this somehow makes the count more accurate.

Anyway, if you and some friends scrape together enough money for a motel room on the night of the count, you are not considered homeless and will not be counted.

Source: coordinated the PIT count in the midwest. I have a lot of issues with it and am happy to pop off if anyones interested.

DONNIENARC0 t1_j94jhky wrote on February 19, 2023 at 4:34 AM

How do they even go about contacting/measuring these people in the first place, coldest night of the year or not?

I would guess there’s practically no chance the overwhelming majortity of the homeless have reliable contact info, and having city agents canvass the entire city is a practical nonstarter

I guess it seems like every method I can think of for attempting to track homelessness would be horrible best.

cuzimmathug t1_j94uxua wrote on February 19, 2023 at 6:35 AM

Yeah it is pretty complicated. Some of the bigger cities have lots of canvassers that deploy one night in sections of the city. We had a few volunteers and conducted the count over a few days, but would use the official count date as our point of reference. So the question would be "where are you staying tomorrow night?" or "where did you stay thursday night?" depending on the day.

Lots of cities know where the larger encampments are, though part of what determines a states funding is seeing the numbers go down from year to year. Because of this, lots of shady things take place. In Portland 2 years ago the police swept the local camp sites forcing people to move like 3 days before the count, making it exponentially harder to find and count those people.

CaptainObvious110 t1_j93mayy wrote on February 19, 2023 at 12:02 AM

Those people do indeed need resources as well that's true. What I think needs to happen is that people are classified based on why they are homeless.

Loss of job or something else. They need a place to stay temporarily until they can get back on their feet. In the meantime they need to eat and have medical care.
People with mental illness that can be treated and they can hold down a job and just need some stability for the time being.
People with mental and or physical illnesses so severe that they honestly CANNOT hold down a job. As a result, they will always need to be provided with a place to live, food and medical care as well.
Likely there will always be at least a small group of chronically homeless that don't want to live in a traditional home or a shelter. Whether it's because of mental Illness or not I don't think you can force them to live somewhere if that's really not what they want to do.